Phoenix man sentenced to 170-year prison term for child porn

PHOENIX — A Phoenix man has been sentenced to 170 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.

In November 2011, investigators with the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force found thousands of child-porn pictures and videos on a computer owned by 55-year-old John Landrum, Jr. They did it by using computer forensics to trace an IP address to that computer.

When authorities went to Landrum’s house to serve a search warrant, “He answered the door with no clothes on, and the computer in his master bedroom was actively running software called Bearshare, with a search term specific to child pornography,” said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery.

Montgomery said that what investigators found over 3,000 files containing child porn, including 751 videos. Some of the files dated to the 1990s. Much of the material contained children under the age of 15 taking part in sexual acts with adults.

There are reasons why Landrum was prosecuted only on 10 counts. “We don’t charge a count for every single item that a defendant may have,” Montgomery said. “If he had been sentenced to the minimum, it still would have been 100 years, with each 10-year count consecutive.”

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Harriet Chavez sentenced Landrum to 17 years for each of the counts.

Montgomery said that the jury was another reason why he limited the number of counts. “There’s only so much a jury can take in viewing these images. And, yes, the jurors had to look at this. Also, police officers, prosecutors, and investigators have to look at this stuff in order to be able to charge the cases and write the reports.

“The actions of this defendant are disturbing,” said Montgomery. “They are dangerous given the multiple innocent children who were victimized in such an unspeakable manner to produce the material found in his possession.”

He said many of the children have been identified as known victims by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.